oathkeeper-of-tarth:

She’s a pearl! She’s a made-to-order servant just like the hundreds of other pearls being flaunted around back on Homeworld.

Oohhhhh boy, an episode seemingly made out of love for me personally! Time for some quick Pearl Thoughts, one of my favourite things.

So basically, continuing my Star Wars analogy from ages ago, what just happened in Oath headcanon land is

pre-Back to the Barn: Pearls are R2s

post-Back to the Barn: Pearls are 3POs

Not
gonna lie, I’m really going to miss blue-collar-y maintenance pearls
(but watch me still use that as a sort of dumping ground for repurposed pearls
who didn’t perform up to snuff for whatever reason, and also our Pearl being an
apparently “fancy one” implies there’s a gradation there as well).

Things that stood out to me in particular:

– Pearls are meant to literally belong to somebody (combines well with the made-to-order statement earlier), “made to take orders, not to give them”, and are apparently not considered (or allowed) to be independent Gems – “Where do you get off acting like your own Gem? You’re just a pearl!”

This of course brings to mind Friend Ship – both Pearl’s breakdown over being “just a pearl” and Garnet’s subsequent words to her about being her own Gem and controlling her own destiny – and the apparent effects of those events on Pearl now (culminating in her punching Peridot in the face).

– Pearls are a status symbol – Peridot describes Pearl as “an accessory” and “somebody’s shiny toy” meant to be flaunted and to “stand around and look nice and hold your stuff for you” (literally holding – or holding in their gemspace? I can completely see high-up Gems using and treating pearls as little more than expensive designer handbags) – in interesting and rather frivolous contrast with the apparent general utilitarianism we’ve so far seen of Homeworld (and Peridot’s reaction to the idea of having a pearl – and being seen with her own pearl by other Homeworld Gems – was very notable).

Peridot: So, who do you belong to, anyway?
Pearl: Nobody!
Peridot: Then…what are you for?

I’ll just lazily quote myself here (and re-reading that post now was really interesting!) and say that if/since(?) pearls are bought and sold and
literally owned by other Gems, I like the idea of Rose’s affectionate “my
Pearl“ being a term of endearment between the two, but also an
expression Pearl has reclaimed for herself by choosing to
dedicate herself to Rose and making it a badge of pride instead of
something used to devalue her and tear her down and make her
something lesser. “You are beneath me,” as Peridot screams.

There’s now the question of why our Pearl would be considered defective, as Jasper calls her. I’m personally very invested in this not being simply because she’s doing things that pearls “aren’t meant to” such as taking an interest in engineering and learning to fight and generally disregarding orders, but I guess this remains to be seen.

I’m super into Pink Diamond theorising, and this all fits into that very nicely, opening up the doors to all sorts of courtly politics and intrigue-flavoured stuff.